A 9800GX2 fits as long as you have right angle plugs on the hard drives, and the 2 top fans keep the temps relatively low. I'm thinking about grabbing one of the DFI uATX boards with the dual pci express slots, I'm pretty sure the cooling setup could handle another 9800GX2." -psychokids, Newegg reviewer

Airmantharp wrote:"You can squeeze in 92mm fans for the top 2 positions, its a tight fit and they are held in securely by friction alone, no screws necessary. Little bit better airflow at lower noise this way.

Actually the NT06 - E would be a better choice, but I was going of some of FrostyTech's reviews to find something even better at cooling since I was considering this.

Airmantharp wrote:I only mention it, because looking at it, it looks like you could turn the 'Silverstone' etched fan mount/shroud thing 180 degrees and use it to mount a fan on the bottom, blowing up (edit, pun not intended). Would be great for 775! Anyone know where to find an adapter for one of these?

ummmm I posted doing that with this in my original post. The reason why the enzo was it got a better rating in reviews.

and if you find something don't just post a quote, provide some links man!!! There might be even more info being missed since I can't see the source.

"I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.

And near as I can tell, the NT06-E is what I linked above... but I digress. Looking at Frostytech's leaderboard, under the low profile section (I didn't know they had that! Cool!), I don't see any that note LGA 1366 compatibility. I wonder though, do you think you could rig that Enzo cooler's fan underneath the heatsink and orient it blowing upwards? And I wonder even then if it would be short enough? It looks like from the pictures that it's 8.6cm minus the fan, that would be 86mm, do we know yet exactly what the clearance below the PSU will be on these Silverstone cases?

Airmantharp wrote:I wonder though, do you think you could rig that Enzo cooler's fan underneath the heatsink and orient it blowing upwards? And I wonder even then if it would be short enough? It looks like from the pictures that it's 8.6cm minus the fan, that would be 86mm, do we know yet exactly what the clearance below the PSU will be on these Silverstone cases?

I have thought this very thing myself. Also I caught a picture of it online of someone doing it with an enzo. So it can be done (fan wise) as for the SG01? Don't know, I think at this point I order everything and slap it in there and see that might work HSF wise.

As I said if the idea fails, I can just swap the case for something a little more roomy and deal with it. (as long as I don't cook anything).

"I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.

Yeap; if you don't mind the expense of returning the SG-01, which shouldn't be much in the grand scheme of things. If you switched to a tower-format case, you'll have to be wary of drive cages getting in the way of the GPU, but you'd be able to put a full size cooler in there for the CPU and would probably be able to cool the whole system a little better. Mini P180 maybe?

You'd have to take out that middle removable drive cage to put the GPU in, I had this issue in my P180. You could put a fan in front of the GPU though, and another in front of the hard drive bay in the top- man I like this case already! If you wanted to go nuts with this thing, I think it would take just about any cooler you can imagine for the CPU, the isolated PSU section would allow for anything to be put down there and it wouldn't make much of a difference if it were modular, which is something I couldn't live without with the Silverstone cases, and it could easily accommodate an SLi setup if you so chose. The downsides of gaining the extra expandability would be that it's going to be much bigger than the SIlverstone cases, and if the weight of my P180 is any indication it will be much heavier as well. Are you trying to take this guy to LAN parties?

Airmantharp wrote:Yeap; if you don't mind the expense of returning the SG-01, which shouldn't be much in the grand scheme of things. If you switched to a tower-format case, you'll have to be wary of drive cages getting in the way of the GPU, but you'd be able to put a full size cooler in there for the CPU and would probably be able to cool the whole system a little better. Mini P180 maybe?

Not bad but I like the Silverstone TJ08, which really just moves the PSU away. Mostly though the Silverstone is smaller than the P180.

Airmantharp wrote:You'd have to take out that middle removable drive cage to put the GPU in, I had this issue in my P180. You could put a fan in front of the GPU though, and another in front of the hard drive bay in the top- man I like this case already! If you wanted to go nuts with this thing, I think it would take just about any cooler you can imagine for the CPU, the isolated PSU section would allow for anything to be put down there and it wouldn't make much of a difference if it were modular, which is something I couldn't live without with the Silverstone cases, and it could easily accommodate an SLi setup if you so chose. The downsides of gaining the extra expandability would be that it's going to be much bigger than the SIlverstone cases, and if the weight of my P180 is any indication it will be much heavier as well. Are you trying to take this guy to LAN parties?

Not really concerned about the extra drive cage. The only thing I am drop in there is one HD and a DVD. One reason why I don't need the room anymore all of my large storage is sitting in a 2u server in my basement.

I used to attend a LAN parties a lot. Nowadays not so much, but there has been some rumbling again with the group about starting up again. Online is fun but getting everyone in a room together is even better. I really just prefer the smaller case. I'm not building a box with 3-4 HDDs, dual optical burners, internal ZIP drives or media card readers. I used to have massive full towers literally packed to the gills back in the day. Since I have centralized everything, reduced my needs. Really an SFF case just makes sense.

"I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.

The Mini P180 has the potential for better cooling and should be a quieter case- but the TJ08 is both cheaper and lighter and should definitely suffice. I'd just make sure, like the Lanbox style cases, to get a modular PSU so you don't have all of the excess cables to mess with. I think the cable routing should also be a little better on the Mini P180, it's built like the P182 IIRC. They do both look nice, with the TJ08 pulling off some Lian Li styling cues, I feel that you could do well with either!

I thought I mentioned it in this thread, I but I guess it was a couple of other ones: if I was trying to minimize case size while ensuring room to cram in one of the long video cards, I'd take a long look at the Silverstone SG03. Yes, it's significantly taller than a "cube' case but in person it seems a lot smaller than a normal mATX mini tower, and it's very light -- and your cooling options wouldn't be as constrained.

UberGerbil wrote:I thought I mentioned it in this thread, I but I guess it was a couple of other ones: if I was trying to minimize case size while ensuring room to cram in one of the long video cards, I'd take a long look at the Silverstone SG03. Yes, it's significantly taller than a "cube' case but in person it seems a lot smaller than a normal mATX mini tower, and it's very light -- and your cooling options wouldn't be as constrained.

I see where you're going, but the SG03 still mounts the PSU above the CPU- which means being significantly limited in CPU cooling options, with respect to available i7 coolers, and thus doesn't have much to offer over the SG01. I'm still liking the Mini P180 for setting up a system that's small, yet still has the fullest capacity to be performance oriented, such as SLi/Crossfire and full size CPU coolers for full overclocking potential, while also having a shot at keeping the noise reasonable.

I just found this thread while searching to see if anybody had tried dual 9800 gx2's in an SG01. That's my review from newegg that was quoted up above, I've changed a couple things since however.

I replaced the power supply with a 650TX corsair unit which is great for most cases, however its fan barely spins up until you are pulling 300+ watts through it. My CPU now overheats (and by overheat I mean 80+ C) at 100% load with the new lower airflow power supply and no fan, so I had to figure out a way to give it its own fan.

I had a Thermalright SI-120 kicking around, and I removed the 2 small support bars and was able to carefully bend it by hand down to the 86mm to fit under my power supply. With it bent to that level, there is a perfect amount of space for a 92mm Nexus fan BENEATH the fins of the heatsink, blowing upwards through the fins into the power supply.

wires everywhere I know, it is still a work in progress. click for high resolution ratsnest

Works just fine as is, but I am probably going to pick up a Scythe Kaze Jyu Slim 100mm fan and use that instead. The old SI-120 worked just as well as the NT06-E did so I just sent the NT06 back. For a new build though since you probably won't have or find a SI-120 just pick up an NT06 and a slim 92 or 100mm fan if you have a hot processor and/or a low flow power supply. Lowered my temps 20C.

Also I would shoot an email to Silverstone about using the NT06 on an LGA1366 board, they have been responsive to my questions and I would be surprised if they didn't have SOME kind of recommendation for a SG01 i7 build.

Also as far as video cards go, as long as the PCI express slot is slot #2 on the motherboard there will be no issues with any normal dual slot video cards, in fact it could fit a card up to 14" long in that position if they made them that big. Well like I said in the review you want right angle connections to your HDDs but that is all.

If the PCI express is slot # 1 though or for one of the DFI dual slot mobos, you have to remove the fan that blows into the HDD cage, remove a couple screws and slide the HDD cage to the right to allow clearance for the HDD connectors. It might be possible to replace the fan with a 10mm thin version and/or use 2.5" raptor drives with a custom mounting to get everything to fit.

All in all though it is much easier just to drop in one of the dual cards like a 9800gx2 like I did, or also GTX295 and not worry about any of that. Or I guess you could use a single card but whats the fun in that?

Unfortunetly, and as I have previously posted. I am not going to but an X2 or SLI/Crossfire config into this box. 1) I am not that heavy of a gamer 2) I've never seen the point of it, since the voodoo2 days, 3) The excess heat I think would be a huge issue and while I don't expect this box to be silent, I sure as heck don't want the noise of two GPUs and enough cooling to handle them.

"I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.

Oh ok for some reason I thought you were thinking about dual GCs. I agree with you that SLI is mostly useless (except for super high resolutions), TBH I don't even play PC games but once in a blue moon and if I didn't fold I would probably be using onboard graphics instead of my GX2. The cooling setup with the 2 video card case fans in the sg01 will keep pretty much any single card plenty cool and you can run the case fans at a low enough voltage that all you will hear is the video card fan.

For CPU coolers, my SG01 has 89mm between the top of the processor heat spreader and the bottom of the power supply. I'm not sure how everybody else is measuring to get 70mm etc but I would recommend one of the ones that has the top fin section supported solely by the heat pipes. The pipes are very easy to bend slightly to exactly where you want the top to be - I bent mine with it attached to the motherboard and installed in the case. The closer the fit the better; ideally you want as much of the PSU airflow to come through the cpu heatsink as possible. Once my build is finalized I will be sticking some thick aluminum foil tape to duct all of the air through in fact. Also these coolers allow a fan to be mounted underneath, which would be best for a quad core i7.

Or it looks like the Scythe Shuriken you mentioned earlier would work with its fan attached, as would a nexus low-7000. Either way you'll probably need a fan of some kind on the heatsink, even if it is a pwm fan that is set to only spin under load conditions.

psychokids wrote:For CPU coolers, my SG01 has 89mm between the top of the processor heat spreader and the bottom of the power supply.

Cool that is some great info.

psychokids wrote:Or it looks like the Scythe Shuriken you mentioned earlier would work with its fan attached, as would a nexus low-7000. Either way you'll probably need a fan of some kind on the heatsink, even if it is a pwm fan that is set to only spin under load conditions.

I wouldn't go without an active cooler on such new hardware. Passive cooling might work on some older parts but I would imagine not for the i7

"I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.

JustAnEngineer wrote:Doesn't Socket-AM3 or AM2+ with a Phenom II make more sense than LGA-775 at this point?

From a basic gaming perspective, yes. But if you actually need all of the horsepower you can get, overclocking a Q9550 would be close to the best you could get outside of an i7; though I would personally take a very hard look at AMD's top PHII offerings, specifically the 955. I didn't even think of this before, honestly, thank you for bringing that up FF.

Case showed up yesterday(the rest arrives today) The card will fit, though I do see possible issue. There is enough room front to back but the longer card may cover the 3.5" drive bays. Not that his is a huge issue I can always get a HDD cooler that fits in the second 5.25" bay and put it under the burner. Again not like I am going to be cramming a bunch of storage and what not in it.

It is a little wider then my SN25P but still very acceptable in size. Considering all I ever need in a PC is a CPU, GPU, HD, and a burner what do I need a big case for anymore?

More to come and I'll be taking pictures. Worse thing is I have a 10:30pm hockey game to watch tonight so that means a nap so I won't get a ton of time to work on it tonight.

But GO WINGS!!!!

"I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.

Waiting for HSF, some fans and the short cable kit. I had to go with a 700w PSU, since the 600 was out of stock. I highly recommend the short cable kit since Silverstone by default provides cable long enough to reach China.

The Vid card fits fine, the board layout has it in the middle of the 4 slots, there is about 2/2.5 inches of room to the front of the case. Longer cards could fit easily.

The GPU does overlap the 3.5 drive bays. But there is room to work between them.

I'll be taking some pics tonight, though I will probably be removing everything to re-route some cables and get everything mounted correctly.

"I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.

I am trying the Scythe SHURIKEN HSF. FrostyTech.com listed it as not only one of the lowest profile HSF but also one of the quietest. Fingers crossed. (Side note I replaced the stock plastic mounting pins with with one of these. Much better solution if you ask me. )

Shot of the HSF in place and cables routed. Also I flipped the fan over to blow air up. The PSU has a massive 135mm fan so I hope this moves enough air.

As you can see plenty of length front to back for the GPU, but it will over lap the 3.5 drive cage. still there is about an inch so routing cables isn't an issue.

Full open side shot.

I had some booting issues with come config setting on the motherboard, along with HD not appearing, after getting the BIOS updated and all the setting straightened out I managed to just get the OS installed last night. Along with updating drivers.

I haven't installed any temp monitoring tools cause by 10:30 I was wiped out. (had a very long weekend, not to mention yard work before I even got started. At least I could let the OS install while I mowed grass. )

More to come as I see how all this runs.

"I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.